Review: Druid's Sword

Druid's Sword by Sara Douglass
Druid's Sword by Sara Douglass
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So on the one hand, this book drew me in hard. So hard. Having read nearly all of Sara Douglass's other work, this was the last series-related book of hers that I would ever get to read, I approached this book with trepidation. I had read the first in this quadrology (Hades' Daughter) back when it came out in the early 2000s and never came back to the series. I decided to re-read that book and follow on with each of the books in this series about a year ago. I wasn't that impressed with the first but as Douglass usually does, she continues to develop her characters in some ways, while keeping their essence in others, and by this book, I was itching to see how it would end. Kudos for her for sucking me in again. Around the one-third mark, I knew that I would be pacing to finish this and even down to the last few pages, I wasn't entirely sure how it was going to be wrapped up.

In essence, several characters who are regularly reborn to try to perform an act that will either trap or unleash evil (or more evil) into the world are now having their final confrontation in London during the German bombing in World War II. But they've been presented with an impossible puzzle that means the most innocent of them must die or the evil must be allowed to dominate London. Of course, they find a way but the layers that Douglass wove into how they get there with hints from as far back as book one are smart and at times, unpredictable. I thoroughly enjoyed moving through the world with these characters and seeing how they grow and develop.

However, there is another hand. The ending feels a bit too abrupt and a bit too forced. It doesn't seem to communicate the same sense of greatness that so much that had happened before does. What happens to Grace at the very end, feels a bit too Deux Ex Machina and in truth, the last 30 pages (which is the actual climax) feel like they could have been drawn out further, comes a bit too fast. What it feels like is that there was the potential for another book or Douglass was planning a follow-up but neither of which ever got to occur.

Regardless, the four books are worth the jaunt and this one still got the best of me in terms of racing to the bitter-sweet end of another one of her series.

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